I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for determining connection status of terminals in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
A terminal in a wireless communication system (e.g., a cellular phone in a cellular system) may communicate with one or more base stations during a call. The terminal may be mobile and may be handed off from one base station to another base station as it moves about during the call. The terminal may also be sporadically active while connected with any given base station. To conserve radio resources, the terminal may be assigned radio resources while active and may be assigned no radio resources while idle.
The dynamic nature of the terminal's connections with different base stations as well as the dynamic nature of the terminal's activity may make it challenging to track the connection status of the terminal. The terminal may exchange signaling with a base station during call setup, handoff, and/or at other times as needed. The terminal and the base station may thereafter operate based on the configuration negotiated during the signaling exchange. However, an error may occur during the signaling exchange, at the terminal, and/or at the base station for whatever reason. When such an error occurs, the terminal and/or the base station may operate improperly. For example, the terminal may erroneously believe that it is assigned certain radio resources when such is not the case. In this situation, any transmission by the terminal on the radio resources may cause interference to another terminal actually assigned the radio resources. Conversely, the terminal may not realize that it has been assigned radio resources by the base station. The terminal may send no transmission on the radio resources, which would then be wasted.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to avoid situations in which the terminal and/or the base station have erroneous connection information.